Category: News

Click here to check out the recent RTS radio interview (in French), where Jerome discussed his recent paper in PNAS

[ssba-buttons]

Congratulations to Jérome and Cleo , who have published a paper titled ‘Invasiveness is linked to greater commercial success in the global pet trade’ in PNAS.  https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2016337118

The article investigates the link between invasive species and the pet trade. Using an extensive meta-analysis approach, they show how invasive species are overrepresented within the pet trade across major groups of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. However, this does not answer the question of whether ‘pests become pets’ or ‘pets become pests’. Using ANTS as an emergent group of pets, who’s recent rise in popularity is unlikely to have already caused invasions, they found an overrepresentation of invasive ant species in the pool of species treated as pets.  This, linked with a link between key traits for invasiveness and popularity as traded pets, indicates that the pet trade not only creates opportunities for invasions, but specifically selects for invasive species. These findings therefore show the need for stricter international regulations in the trade of pets.

This publication has also gained interest by the news, with a recent article being published in Forbes

[ssba-buttons]

The RTS radio show hosts 4 comedians and a guest who has to play a guessing game – and can also tell stories themselves. So, naturally there are a lot of jokes, anecdotes and stories about ants. The five episodes have been on air on March 15-19 2021.

click here to listen to “les Dicodeurs” with Cleo.

[ssba-buttons]

“Globalization and the anthropogenic spread of invasive social insects” has been published in Current Opinion in Insect Science.

Social insects are among the worst invasive species and a better understanding of their anthropogenic spread is needed. Here, I highlight recent research demonstrating that social insects have been dispersed since the early beginnings of globalized trade and in particular after the Industrial Revolution, following two waves of globalization. Many species have complex invasion histories, with multiple independent introduction events and frequent secondary spread. The major source and recipient regions differ markedly across ants, wasps, termites and bees, probably linked to their different introduction pathways. At a more local scale, anthropogenic factors such as irrigation, urbanization or the presence of railways facilitate invasions. In the future, social insect invasions could further accelerate due to intensifying global trade and novel introduction pathways.

The full paper can be found here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214574521000079

[ssba-buttons]

We are looking for a postdoc in Biostatistics/ Macro-ecology to join us in Lausanne (CH). Ideally you are a creative and passionate person and  good team player with excellent communication skills who likes to discuss and exchange ideas. You should have (or be expected to obtain in the near future) a PhD in biostatistics, macroecology or a related field, knowledge of statistics and programming, willingness for interdisciplinary collaboration and interest in economics and trade.You will be working with a young and dynamic team of invasion biologists, global change ecologists and ant lovers (to be found on this webpage). Here you can find out more about the position: https://bit.ly/2Y76Po1

If you have questions, you can contact Cleo directly (cleo.bertelsmeier@unil.ch)

[ssba-buttons]